News

Marking Workers Memorial Day 2008, CWA will join with other unions Monday, April 28, at the National Labor College in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., to break ground on a garden-style national memorial honoring fallen workers.

While the rest of the country speculates on who will get the Democratic nomination for president, CWA members at the union's annual Legislative-Political Conference focused on the bigger picture: Ensuring that the November election brings sweeping change that will rapidly usher in the Employee Free Choice Act and a pro-worker agenda.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had CWA members jumping to their feet, cheering and clapping wildly Tuesday morning during speeches in which both candidates pledged support for the Employee Free Choice Act, health care reform, universal broadband and other key CWA issues.

The battle for fair trade vs. free trade accelerated this week as President Bush sent his Colombia Free Trade Agreement to Congress, two Democratic candidates for president blasted the deal at CWA's Legislative-Political Conference and the AFL-CIO launched a telephone and e-mail campaign to convince lawmakers to reject the deal.

CWA's National Civil Rights and Equity Conference, held in conjunction with the legislative-political conference, had just gotten underway the evening of April 9 as the newsletter went to press. Some 200 participants looked forward over the next three days to hearing from prominent civil rights activists and participating in panel discussions and workshops challenging them to more fully integrate civil rights issues with the union's core work of organizing, political activism and representation.